Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 354

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(Chapter 1
at the point marked C, "Close by," at the distance of about 500 yards (see No. i), was the main group of caves on the left bank of the river, into one of the tunnels of which Lieutenant Bower entered. On his return, he went to the village of Faizâbâd, the houses of which he had, earlier in the morning, discerned from a distance, see below p. xiii.
(iv) With regard to the Weber Manuscripts, the earliest reference to their discovery is contained in a letter, addressed to me by the Rev. F. Weber, of the Moravian Mission in Leh, in Ladak, on the 21st June 1892. Translated from the German, it runs as follows -
“Two years ago I met here in Leh the traveller Captain Bower. He showed me an old book which had been found not far from Yarkand, 21 and which he intended submitting to you ... .. .. ... I. regret that I have never been able to learn anything about the age of that book; but in the meantime I have succeeded in getting hold of an undoubtedly very old book, which I venture to submit to you for critical examination. It was found, the year before im vergangenen Jahr), not far from Kugiar on the border of Yarkand 21 ... ... ... ... Near that place, there is a house which, apparently since immemorial times, is ruined and buried.22 Some mercliants, hoping to find treasure, undertook with much trouble to excavate it, but found only the bodies of some cows which, on the first touch, crumbled into dust. On that occasion they found also the above mentioned book."
(v) The above narrated particulars of the excavation of the "house," or stúpa, in which the Weber Manuscripts were found, Mr. Weber had from a letter written in Urdû, which was interpreted to him by the person who delivered the manuscripts to him. This appears from another letter addressed to me by Mr. Weber from Leh on the 29th July 1892. In it, he wrote that the book had been no more than three days in his hands before he transmitted it to ine. He, then, continued as follows (translated from the German original):
4 As I received the book through an intermediary, the latter could not furnish me with exact information. He showed me a letter in Urdd (which, however, I could not read) written by the finder of the book, an Afghan merchant, in which the find-place and everything that I reported in my previous letter was stated. The people knew that I collect Tibetan objects of every kind, and it was for that reason that the book was brought to me.''
(vi) The identity of the intermediary (Munshi Ahmad Din), and the “Afghan merchant" (Dildâr Klân), mentioned in the preceding quotation, is disclosed in a letter written by Sir George Macartney, on the 12th October 1896 from Kashgar, to Lieut-Colonel. Sir A. C. Talbot, K. C. I. E., then British Resident in Kashmir. That letter was sent together with the Macartney Manuscripts, the acquisition of a portion of which is explained in it as follows : 23
This is a manuscript, presented by Dildar Khân, an Afghan merchant in Yarkand. It appears that when the Bower MS, was found in Kuchar, two others were at the same time and under the same circumstances discovered.21 Dildêr Khân obtained possession of the latter, and took them to Leh in 1891.
21 The reference, of course, is to the Bower Manuscript, which, owing to a misapprehension, Mr. Weber at that time believed to have been discovered in Kugiar (Kokyar), about 60 miles south of Yarkand, at 77' 12' E. Long, and 37° 25' N. Lat. See the Map in the Geographical Journal, July 1893. The misapprehension was subsequently corrected in a letter addressed to me by the Rev. F. B. Shawe from Leh, on the 15th September 1893. See Sir Charles Elliott's Annual Address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1894, p. 33 ; also Journal ASB., Vol. LXII (1893), pp. 1 and 2; and ibid., Vol. LXVI (1897) p. 229.
The German original has versunkenes und vershüttetes Haus. The word "house" evidently represents the Urdd ghar of Mr. Weber's native informant. That word appears to be usually employed by the natives of Turkestan to indicate a stapa: See, e.g., Sir Aurel Stein's Ancient Khotan, Vol. I., P. 483.
See Journal As. Soc. Beng., Vol. LXVI (1897), p. 27. * This statement, as will be shown in the sequel, is a misapprehension. The two others " are rather "two bundles of manuscripts" (see No. x), and they were found at a place and at a time different from those of the discovery of the Bower Manuscript.
25 This should be 1892. See Nos, iv. and v.